A captive or a refugee? A new arrival at the Hilltop opens up about the leader of a group of mask-wearing savages. A search party sets out on a daring mission to find two missing friends.

Lots of flashbacks as we see the rise of Alpha, the leader of the Whisperers, through the eyes of her daughter, Lydia, who is being held at Hilltop. (I'd argue it economically tells a more compelling "first days of the apocalypse" story than the whole first season of Fear the Walking Dead.) Lydia realizes her mom is a monster (maybe?), Henry gets on board with lying to his new friend to get her to become a better person, and Darryl comes around to giving Lydia a chance to redeem herself.

Some other stuff happened with the new crew as they went through a super-condensed "do we trust this new community that invited us in" arc. Luke and Alden are brought along as hostages as the Whisperers come to visit Hilltop, and Connie finds herself on the wrong side of the wall when they show up.

I'm glad they didn't drag out the Whisperers storyline, going for many more episodes before finally revealing them, as the show has tended to do in the past. The faster pace of this season seems to be helping with my overall enjoyment, after a few painfully slow seasons.posted by asnider at 9:47 AM on February 25, 2019

There have been a few times throughout the series where outsiders have brought up the this community will fall just like all the others idea, but at this point in the narrative there are multiple communities in relatively close proximity (Hilltop, Oceanside, the Kingdom, etc.) that have all survived the zombie apocalypse for a solid decade. Lydia, you sound stupid. Your mom sounds stupid.posted by Parasite Unseen at 5:10 PM on February 25, 2019 [3 favorites]

The geography and timeline of these communities is interesting, if the Whisperers were indeed just based a mile away from Hilltop, and The Kingdom is a day's ride from Hilltop. If I remember correctly, Alpha and Lydia started out in Baltimore, which means they haven't traveled as far as the main crew who came up from Atlanta.

We have seen a number of seemingly-established communities fail, although usually at the hands of our protagonists: Woodbury, Terminus, and The Sanctuary. (In FTWD, it's the communities the protagonists are part of that keep failing.)posted by jimw at 4:47 PM on February 27, 2019 [1 favorite]